‘He’s backing off,’ said Gallen into his mic. ‘We have to hit that engine or the tail rotor.’
‘Hearing you, boss,’ came Ford’s Aussie twang.
‘Okay, on my five,’ said Gallen, and counted them in.
As the helo righted itself and drifted back to firing position, Gallen reached ‘five’ and the three Heckler & Koch G36 rifles opened up on the helo, which banked again and tried to circle back.
‘Shit,’ said Gallen, wanting the helo within range.
‘I’ll get him in,’ said Ford.
‘Nothing stupid, Mike,’ said Gallen, struggling to breathe.
The Aussie emerged from his hide a few yards away from the destroyed jet engine, and raised his rifle in plain sight. The helo twisted slightly and the shooter in the back aimed-up with the DMR.
Firing again, Gallen missed on the first but hit the man’s shoulder with a lucky shot on his second, dropping the shooter.
The pilot forgot about being careful and, dipping the nose, charged at the fuselage, the minigun spinning.
‘Okay, boys,’ came Winter’s voice. ‘Mike, get down, let’s finish this prick.’
Ford dived to his left, back to the dugout he’d found in the snow, and Winter and Gallen opened up on the helo as it went through its ammo cans faster than any other gun on earth. Gallen’s shots found their mark in the helo’s tail section and rotor turret, but with no impact. Then his G36 clicked empty.
Finally, the fuselage looking like Swiss cheese, the helo banked out of the bowl and circled, Winter having stopped shooting too.
Gallen’s heart sank. ‘Guys, I’m out. Get down, wait for them to deboard and then let’s take ‘em.’
‘Wait,’ came Winter’s voice. ‘Think I scored in the engine bay.’
They waited for the helo to circle, coming back to finish them with the relentless gun. Then Winter’s voice was in his head.
‘Smoke! Look, boss!’
Squinting into the sun, Gallen saw a vague tendril of brown smoke wafting from the helo and then realised the engine note had changed from roaring power to a lawnmower with a dirty spark plug.
Standing, he watched the aircraft limping away from their camp, the engine note becoming more uneven as the smoke from the turbine grew browner. There was a flash of flame and then the smoke was black like a steam locomotive and the engine was struggling, the rotor losing revs.
‘You seeing this?’ said Gallen, but he could see the Canadian and Aussie already emerging from their hides, running through the snow after the crippled helo. ‘Bring ammo for me,’ he said, dragging his feet back into action as he headed down to the camp. ‘And bring a pack full of food.’
‘Got it,’ came Ford’s voice.
‘And fellers,’ said Gallen over the mic, his lungs burning for air, ‘whatever we have to do, I want that radio in one piece. Can do?’
‘No one touches the radio,’ Winter panted. ‘No one even looks at it funny.’
As Gallen found the ice ramp down to the fuselage a shot of orange flame burst from the stricken helicopter.
Keeping his eyes on the point where the aircraft disappeared over the ridge, he threw himself forward on his stomach and let gravity take him on a toboggan ride to the valley floor.
CHAPTER 23
Gallen met his men at the bottom of the lookout cliff, dusting snow off his parka as he took the spare mag. He was exhausted, fighting for breath as the three of them looked at a point on the horizon about five hundred yards north where the helo had dropped, flames pouring from it.
‘Shit, guys,’ he said, hands on his knees, his face almost hitting snow as he leaned forward. ‘I’m beat.’
‘We can’t keep running around in this snow,’ said Winter, mouth hanging open like a hound dog’s. ‘We don’t have the food supply to support it, and we can’t afford to get covered in sweat. It just ices over.’
Catching their breath, they looked at where they had to trek to, simply to get into a gunfight on the other side of the hill.
Looking at his G-Shock, Gallen had 3.42 pm. The sun was low and the temperature was starting its drop towards the overnight extremes of minus forty or fifty, the killer temperatures they didn’t want to endure in the open.
‘If the wreck’s one thousand yards,’ said Gallen, ‘we can get there and back before nightfall proper. Let’s say a return trip of ninety minutes?’
‘And if we get to the top of the hill and the chopper’s two thousand yards, with shooters waiting?’ said Winter.
They looked at one another, caught between the uncertainty of waiting in the fuselage for search and rescue, and the uncertainty of finding the Little Bird’s radio and calling for help.
‘How’s Harry?’ said Gallen, changing the subject.
‘On his way out,’ said Ford. ‘But he’s dry and we got food into him a couple of hours ago. Where’s Florita?’
‘They got her at the lookout,’ said Gallen, unable to look them in the eye. ‘Starts running towards the chopper like her Christmases have come at once, and then—’
‘Shit,’ said Ford.
‘Okay.’ Gallen took a calming breath. ‘There’s only way home, and it starts with a radio. What’s our food?’
Opening his pack, Winter revealed a plastic bag of muffins and a Tupperware container of cold cuts: ham, salami and pressed chicken. Beside the food stash were two large bottles of water, distilled by Florita.
‘That’s maybe enough for twenty-four hours,’ said Winter. ‘We’ll have to get to that helo and get on the radio tonight.’
The helicopter was perched on the end of a large ice escarpment, lying horizontal about two hundred feet over a partially frozen lake. As the sun edged towards the horizon to their left, pushing down the temperature to twenty below, Winter handed the field-glasses back to Gallen.
‘Seven hundred yards,’ said Winter. ‘I agree with Mike. There’s one set of tracks away from the machine.’
‘One survivor?’
‘One who can move on foot,’ said Ford. ‘Doesn’t mean there’s not a dude in the bird with broken legs, waiting with an M4 on his lap.’
‘Where would the tracks go?’ said Gallen.
‘The fit one’s gone wandering, or he’s waiting for us to arrive, going to ambush us for our clothes and food.’
Gallen looked at the scene again, saw the last light of the day and felt the cold numbing his feet and face. A puff of wind hit the ridge they were standing on, and the cold cut through to his ribs like someone had hit him with a chisel.
‘We go the long way,’ he said, knowing he wasn’t going to be popular. ‘There’s one survivor on foot and he’s probably got the DMR. He could be waiting for us, so we have to come in from his six.’
Ducking into the lee side of the ridge, Winter led the team in a long semicircle. As their feet started breaking through the crust of the hardening snow, Gallen knew he’d given them a better chance of taking the helo unchallenged, but he also knew the journey would take about an hour longer than the direct route.
Gallen’s legs gave out halfway up the large snow drift. Falling sideways, he felt himself drop until the drift held him as if weightless. He struggled for balance as Ford and Winter got him upright.
‘You okay, boss?’ Winter whispered. The wind had died and the terrain had an eerie stillness, the pale blue dome of dusk bouncing the smallest noises for a thousand yards.
‘I’m okay.’ Gallen knew he should have had more recovery time from the hypothermia. The truth was, he was running on half-strength and he was having trouble balancing.